# Date: 1917-02

the place of government over persons is taken by 
the administration of things and the direction of 
processes of production. The State is not "abolished", 
it dies away. By this measure must be judged the 
phrase about the "free people's state", both as to its 
temporary agitational justification, and as to its 
ultimate scientific inadequacy; by this measure 
equally the (p. 302) demands of the so-called 
Anarchists, that the State should be abolished from 
today to tomorrow." (p. 303. *Anti-Dühring*. 3rd 
[ed.])"

In the preface to "*Inter nationale* from the *People's State*" (3. I. 4894) Engels writes that the word "social-democrat" "may perhaps pass muster today" (p. 6), "unsuitable as it (the word "social-democrat") remains for a party whose economic programme is not merely socialist in general, but directly communist, and whose political ultimate final aim is the overcoming of the entire State, and hence also of Democracy." (7).

* ENGELS: "ON THE AUTHORITARIAN PRINCIPLE".
Friedrich Engels: *Neue Zeit* XXXII, 1 
(1913—4), pp. 10, 37. (Published in 1873)
Friedrich Engels: "On the Authoritarian Principle" (37—39).

Authority presupposes "Subordination". Small-scale production is displaced by large-scale production. "Is it possible to have an organization without authority?" (37)

"Let us suppose that a social Revolution has dethroned the capitalists... Will authority disappear in this case or will it only change its form?" (38).

Take an example: paper mills,—railways,—a ship on the high seas... Without authority it is unthinkable.

"If I put these arguments before the most rabid antiauthoritarians, they can only answer me as follows: Well yes, that is true, but here it is not a question of the authority which we delegate to these delegates, but of a commission. These people think that they can change a thing by changing its name. [411—412] Thus do these profound thinkers mock the whole world.

"We have, therefore, seen that on the one hand a certain authority, no matter how delegated, and on the other hand a certain Subordination, are things which, independently of all social organisation, are imposed upon us together with the material conditions under which we produce and make circulate the products.

"We have further seen that the material conditions of production and circulation are increasingly subjected to the influence of large-scale industry and large-scale agriculture, so that the domain of this authority is itself increasingly extended. It is therefore absurd to represent the authoritarian principle as absolutely evil and the principle of autonomy as absolutely good. Authority and autonomy are relative concepts, and their sphere of application changes with the different phases of social development.

"Had the Autonomists confined themselves to saying that the social organisation of the future will admit of authority only within the limits prescribed by the conditions of production, then one could have come to an understanding with them; but they are blind to all facts which make authority a necessity and they fight passionately against the word.

"Why do not the Antiauthoritarians confine themselves to crying out against political authority, against the State? || All Socialists are agreed that the State, and with it political authority, will disappear as a result of the coming social revolution; that is, that the public functions will lose their political character and will be converted into simple administrative functions watching over the social interests. || But the Antiauthoritarians demand that the political State (NB: the term!!) shall be abolished at one stroke, before the social relations which gave rise to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social Revolution shall be the abolition of authority.

"Have these gentlemen ever seen a Revolution? A Revolution is certainly the

*At p. 344 of the manuscript, side annotations appear: "the State will disappear—unclear!!" and "'political state' (!!)" marked as "well said!" Also marginal notations indicating Bukharin's selective quotation.*

most authoritarian thing there is..."

[The text continues but appears to be cut off in the source provided]